At last, Touhoku University!

Graduate School of Information Sciences, Touhoku University
Sendai City, Japan

*Blog for January 24-25, 2005

I was not able to sleep well last Sunday night because of my excitement in going to Touhoku University. I was to attend a 2-day seminar on number theory and combinatorics. I was excited not only to the fact that I would be going to a top university in Japan, not only because I will be meeting Prof. Munemasa (according to my academic supervisor, he will transition me to Prof. Munemasa for my Ph. D. program) but also because I would be going there on my own. My supervisor just gave me a map and told me what bus to ride to go there. Feeling that I still do not have enough information to reach the place, I search in the web how to go there. Luckily, I found a very detailed one. It was saying that I should take either of the four bus routes going to the university campus and get off at the "Graduate School of Information Science" stop. The bus will be picking up the passengers from bus stop No. 9 which is located in front of the Metropolitan Hotel Sendai which is at the west exit of the station.

I forced myself to sleep even just for two hours. I fell asleep at about 4:30 am, two hours later; I got up and prepared to leave. I got to take the 7:56 am bus from Yamagata. The bus was scheduled to reach Sendai in an hour so I was still able to sleep, I thought. Yes, I slept while on the bus but the bus came a bit late. It was already 9:10 when it reached the Sendai station. I quickly headed to the Sendai station and looked for the west exit. I saw a sign pointing to the west exit and I followed it. I was able to see some bus stops but those were Nos. 39-41. I just walked following the direction of the arrow. After walking for about 5 minutes still not finding the bus stop No. 9, I turned back and walked back the station. I thought I was already lost so I asked a Japanese woman who was sweeping the street. She was not sure where it was but told me to wake further and turn right. I followed her instructions but apparently, it was still not the bus stop I was looking for. I was already worried as it was already 10 minutes before the seminar starts and I was still looking for the bus stop. All of a sudden, I saw the big building to the left of the station with the sign "Metropolitan Hotel Sendai". I was a bit stupid as I forgot to look for it. I found the station and it was good that the bus arrived the moment I reached the bus stop.

Inside the bus I found no seats available except for two orange seats. Most of the seats were green. I was a bit wondering why the two seats were orange but I still took my seat there. Then I noticed a sign over the seat where I was seated and it was saying "for the elderly and the disabled" (of course, written in Japanese). I though of standing up and to move to another seat but as there were no empty seats anymore, I just kept on sitting there. I am a foreigner so they might think that I could not read Japanese. Anyway, I gave up my seat when an old man got on the bus.

The Touhoku University campus reminded me again of my former university, the University of the Philippines (UP). Buildings are located distantly from one another so students are taking buses to come in. We seldom had buses in UP but we always relied on the jeepneys for transport. The campus itself is in a mountain area so there are many trees.

I came in the seminar 10 minutes late. It was of course; quite embarrassing but it was a good thing that my supervisor was not yet there. He arrived ten minutes later. The lecturers were all Japanese except for a Korean professor. Their talks were in Japanese but their transparencies are in English so it had been quite convenient for me.

At about 12:40 pm, we had the lunch break. They gave away maps of the campus with information as to where we can find cafeterias. In the building where we were having the seminar, there was no cafeteria and the next cafeteria could be reached by taking a bus. I didn't want to bother myself in getting on a bus again. Besides, I am bad with maps so I did not dare using it to look for food. All I could remember in the map was there was a booth where I could buy boxed lunch ("bentou").I thought that I had put a bread in my bag before going that morning so I think that would be enough. But as I was walking outside looking for a place where I could eat my bread, I noticed that I forgot to bring it. Ouch! My stomach feels very hungry. I just walked to the nearby Faculty of Science hoping that they have a cafeteria. I checked the building directory looking for a canteen or cafeteria ("shokudo") but I was not able to find one. I thought I would just give up the idea of eating lunch and that I would just endure my hunger until the seminar ends. I just walked to the next building, Department of Earth Sciences to kill the time. As I entered the building, I immediately saw a sign, "Place for selling bentou". Bingo! That was the place where I could buy boxed lunch. A few minutes then I was found walking along the road looking for a place where I could eat my lunch. I could not find a place so I just decided to eat in the waiting shed in the bus stop. Some students saw me eating in the waiting shed but I didn't give them a damn. I was hungry and they could nothing to help. Instead, I am a foreigner so that I could just pretend that would think that I didn't know that I was not supposed to eat there.

The seminar ended for the day and I went back to Yamagata. I was very busy that night as I was to submit my speech script the following day, and a Korean friend was also asking me to translate a Physics article in English to Japanese. I barely had 3 hours of sleep then. To cut the long story short, I came late again at the seminar, 15 minutes late to be exact. My supervisor was already there.

My supervisor was the last one to present and the seminar ended at about 5:10 pm. My supervisor left without asking if I would like to go with him back to Yamagata so I assumed we had to go home separately. But before going back I thought of walking around the Sendai station to look for electronic shops. I would like to buy a memory stick for my camera. I entered a building and climbed up to the seventh floor. I didn't find any electronic store but instead, I saw a bookstore. I decided that I would just check out the books there.

Incidentally, I met my supervisor there. He asked me how I knew the place. I just told him that I was just walking around. Then he just told me that it was the biggest bookstore in Sendai.

I was very exhausted and very sleepy these past two days because of the seminar. But for the following day, I still needed to prepare for my seminar with my supervisor.

January 30, 2005
Yamagata, Japan